3D Cities for Falcon…
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Wow, that’s looking really good! If there is one thing I may suggest as a possible improvement? I know its WIP, but if you made the base texture that the objects sit on more varied rather than a block colour, then the whole thing will blend in much better. Is it possible to use the existing cities base texture and build these structures out of it?
Cheers, Mark
Like this?
Well I only have to hide roads, parks and walkways and export after it.
edit: lol had the same image 2 times.
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Wow, that’s looking really good! If there is one thing I may suggest as a possible improvement? I know its WIP, but if you made the base texture that the objects sit on more varied rather than a block colour, then the whole thing will blend in much better. Is it possible to use the existing cities base texture and build these structures out of it?
Cheers, Mark
hmmm nice we would love too but nope. Why? Time and FPS.
If we go along with the tiles there are 2 things to consider:
1. Buildings will be as much as in real. Than bye bye FPS. In our approach we will build about half or even less buildings. Better than now. In the future that the Falcon engine might be able to cope with such demands sure I’m with you to make it… The plugin has the Open Street Map import ready so Towns can be realistic according to their real size and road network… Also I can create and forests… and tree parks - areas right now… but the Polys jump to Hell and FPS to zero…
2. In many city tiles the corresponding measurements ain’t correct or the same. For example in my test city (Aegean - Volos) in Falcon the tiled area is bigger than the real one and the orientation is wrong. So it’s not that real. In other theaters Like Korea or Israel yes they are more correct but for sure in many cases general tiles are used…
So I try to balance Google Earth and Falcon and Falcon Paths and Falcon Elevations… So the solution is in the middle there. If I go by tile where u know a City has a specific shape and In Falcon is otherwise than ain’t a nice opportunity to correct this? -
Hi all,
Really exciting to read posts about the work being done awesome keep going guys!
No more FLAT Terrain in Falcon Yippppy!
Well I have been flying around Kimpo Int’l Airbase having a good look around and if Devs can get that far with Kimpo then sky is the limit with new exciting ground structures with a new database full of new ground structure models, cities and suburbs matching roads and ground texture tiles etc etc… just awesome better than XPlane10
Just have a look at these screen shots from Kimpo Int’l Airbase as an example and possibilities moving forward in F4 future Theaters and Terrain……
Well as you can see from a cockpit view above this is why we need a new database full of new ground structures all mentioned in the thread starting from first page with trees, forests, bridges, roads, highways, war zones suburbs and towns, large capital cities, military installations like munition factory plants and Army Bases and relative buildings realistically designed and layed out, government assets like power plant’s and factories all fenced areas like in real life etc etc
Built into campaigns as strategic and tactical targets to acquire as a combat sim…… I mean lets get it on… LoL
Just more content over the entire theater as now new ground textures for Falcon are looking awesome here have a look …
Nice ha, awesome!
I rather wait longer and get a new and improved Falcon Theaters that’s going to be mind blowing for all time….so we will learn to wait…wait…wait…
A revolution has begun!
Keeping the faith…long live F4…
Cheers,
:drink:
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Hey Arty, I maybe missing something but hasn’t BMartins just done it ? I am not talking making exact copies of the layouts etc, just a base texture that looks more like generic “city roads etc” than a single block colour. He seems to have achieved that pretty well. I don’t of course know about the FPS hit, but its just a texture, so I cant think why it would affect the FPS?
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Hey Arty, I maybe missing something but hasn’t BMartins just done it ? I am not talking making exact copies of the layouts etc, just a base texture that looks more like generic “city roads etc” than a single block colour. He seems to have achieved that pretty well. I don’t of course know about the FPS hit, but its just a texture, so I cant think why it would affect the FPS?
Yes Bmartins done it.
What Bmartins showed there is a big neighborhood and not a Town, have in mind it’s such as an airport area… so not a whole town as u can see. So let’s not jump in conclusions.That was a test and to show what can be done and test FPS. So as an production approach we believe we must follow elevation and Falcon Paths. We want also night textures and day textures not just gray buildings.
Now if the whole city is one block the problems are many. First in big towns (Seoul) the poly are nuts way too big numbers and u need a super trooper wow extreme computer to handle the model in 3ds even in wireframe view…Texturing also is nuts in such a scale detail will be gone so there must be a compromise and instead of photorealistic textures u must use palette colors only and faith to the force lol.
Now as of elevation u cant follow in detail the flow of the terrain cause this would mean working building by building… so we must split areas according to their elevation. I use the elevation data that Monsters TE offers and I have them in metters that helps me more as I use metters as units…
A problem I have here is that one tile is 388 the next is 188 so there will be gaps and some areas will be in the ground and some in the air… I believe this is a compromise that will not be that visual in the majority of them and if we would builded the town using one alt as reference.
Finally For a large City the buildings as one object are many and LodEditor can 't cope with them u press one button and u wait 20minutes to see the change…
Guys we are eager also to start delivering towns for Falcon but please bear with us, we try to find the way educating our self’s at the same time. At the same time I got the new version of the plugin which has some interesting upgrades… To give u an example here is GT lite vs GT Elite on the job creating the building areas.
So hold on…
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@ skynight - After sorting out how to insert new features (connan is helping but it´s hard as usual…) the next step is to load all the standart korea and just add buildings to the existing ones. Thus all objectives will be kept. putting all the area more interesting. By the tests I´ve made I couldn´t see such a big loss in FPS and my machine is not “the state of the art…” So if anyone with big knowledge could help in this area would be a great help I need new features!
@Markturner - I don´t think anyone has in mind having with all quality a full big CITY. That would be insane. But having a middle term with buildings here and there with strategic areas near objectives with more detail could be done.
Just one thing to someone who might not have understood what is being done is only a two guys personal study to understand if its possible to improve cities and… yes it is. Well the will is here but there is a big deference from having personal cities in my computer and having them shared and stock… Dev´s help or will to having it done is needed. Well but I enjoy doing this king of stuff and already have done more then I expected. Wish arty to achieve its best at aegean because I think that this kind of work is more important to new theaters maybe then the stock one ;).
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Rereading… thanx…
That means that a block will be 1km wide…
Sorry guys I must start it in real terms and I say things just to tell me if I’m right or wrong… One thing I need help is factors I must consider first prior to start the model…I read somewhere to select feet or kilometers or others… (I will go kilometers probably is that ok something else to have in mind for that?)
Also there where some scaling referenced elsewhere…
I will have to scale them by x.xx before I export them so to look well?Now about the procedure to build and split the town is…
1. Falcon paths… Please someone can u help me how can I see them and maybe use them as visual reference for model creation…
2. building the towns I will go that way: reference is the city I have posted already to give an idea…The Red(-ish) area will be low buildings (offices and Houses) and industrial buildings (warehouses etc.)
The Green area will be medium height buildings and houses
The blue area will be the tallest buildings.Also on top of them some area slicing will be needed to have the elevation.
This will be the general plan meaning the division will be on areas and zones that way I believe we will have a realistic and balanced structured city.
Now having the blocks released as the tiles sets are, is in my thoughts but this would be for cities of low interest… So as of Interest wise and hierarchy structure what I think is the best is:
*Per Country (Not per theater)
a. Cities
b. Villages
c. Other sites1. 10 larger towns of the country as real as they can. I mean the road structure and elevations…
2. Major Airbases surroundings and nearby cities or villages in high detail.
3. Rest of the cities with ready blocks (not custom for the city)
4. Villages all by ready blocks. Not all the same but in variation…So there must be done and some ready variation blocks per country… Central Europe cities have other look than Greece… Korea other than Israel Also Egypt other than Israel… so I believe I summed it up. Those are the first thought I have on the F.B.B. Project…
Now if someone else or even u have any more thoughts I’m here listening, open in all frequencies… No help though as I expected… Only few and I thank them very much…
Yea I named it F.B.B. Falcon Building Blocks by Betag’s Team :lol: :rofl:
Hi Guys,
Are you still using this method here in 3D Cities for Falcon Project.
If so I would agree so much why because Theater Terrain needs to be realistic in content as you say above…
“Per Country-not Theater” like Aegean for example watch here:-
I know its a WIP and hopefully once you guys have completed something this will be the standard for all theaters moving forward!
Either way Theaters need more content and more realistic ground structures for a combat sim, simply a new ground structure database with exciting relevant content for theaters as a combat sim.
One important aspect would be suburban war cities/towns and main Capitals cities built up like in real life or as close to it would be nice, this should be with the view of having some nice accurate detailed models in database to use
ie.
Oil Plant Refinery Plants, Power Plants, Wharfs, Army Bases etc etc that look more realistic than the old Falcon 3.0 ground structures.
I’m hoping that someone in community will start to add new content to database and post them kinda like Hayabs attempts to recreate some models fantastic stuff and cant wait to see them in theaters.
Point is no more Flat Terrain and a New Database of Ground Structures I cannot emphasize that enough before any new theaters get released.
It would be a shame if theaters continue to come out FLAT with no new content as you can see now by the many thanks and all other relevant threads people want terrain to be full of 3D content and relative to the campaign from a strategic and tactical aspect because it is a combat sim and not Xplane10, never the less adding features like new exciting ground structure content lifts the look, feel and experience in any sim yet alone F4.
I also see this thread has had nearly 20,000 views thats encouragement on its own.
This is whats missing in the F4 sim, simply and honestly put.
I would not fuss to much about FPS just get it done then the coders will have to improve code and optimize it for more processor/memory usage whatever not my thing, point being dont hold back because of FPS or else nothing will ever happen, …… Just Go For It!
The DEVS have already said here these are the System Requirements for BMS4.32 Here: https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/content.php?132
I also like the first few pics that Arty posted stating that he was working on for BMS in first post
Please, Dont hold back because FPS, just go for it!
So I will keep the faith and hope its all going to be mind blowing!
Sorry if I sound like a PITA although I believe that this project will rock in BMS F4 future! So Just Go For It!
Cheers,
:drink:
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Sure I will get going… Having something in hand to work - play - see with will innovate and others I believe. I know the FPS will be a matter but I hope with this to innovate also the BMS dev’s to make this happen also.
As I see them silent on the subject till now I believe this is a good thing. Why cause all this time before BMS release they where also silent… If there was a vertical problem on this I believe they would said it.
Anyway too much talk time to work it…
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great work!!!:bdance::bdance::bowd::bowd:
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Ok, I’m not an expert 3ds, but maybe this will help you understand how it is done:
It’s all in a nutshell, it can be done in many other ways…
Cheesr,
EghiWell this thing is going to get me crazy. I’ve spend the whole day More than 10 hour only on this subject…
First the switch Normally on must be ticked for the day model and not for the night. If I have it Normally On for the night model than in Falcon I see only the Night textures and never the Day (done the tests Day and night…)
If i have it to Normally on on the day to show up I must in LodEditor after replacing the model to change the switch number in the Data area from 0 to 2 or 4 to show day textures during day and night in the night. What is the correct number? Should I also change and something else like slots?
Now the crazy problem is… during day all are ok all instances of the buildings show correctly but during the night just one instance of the buildings display the night textures and the rest are with the day textures…
like this:So Either the code has problems or LodEditor or the 3ds Export or Aegean theater…
Now 3dExport I don’t think so cause in that case none would worked… So it must be LE or the code, or the theater? Also Eghi uses Afterburner switch… does this matter?Shit if this doesn’t get shorted I will tell it bye bye… It took too much time…
Any Help guys?
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Is that the building with wrong roof? Or have you fixed that. If not maybe there is the problem. Just guessing.
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Where do u see the roofs? I use one set of roofs and two sets of walls. No roofs doesn’t have this trick. And roofs are OK. I will separate and populate them and test them once more. So to be sure that it’s the switch. At first test it showed OK. All night instances where glowing but I didn’t populated them.
Any one else please?
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I will stop my current issues and focus on this one to. Maybe we can sort it out and move on to fixing other problems. Today will try this to. Connan has helped with the features but I got stuck in adding the parents/lod to a new feature… Back to the cdt !"#$%&
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Where do u see the roofs? I use one set of roofs and two sets of walls. No roofs doesn’t have this trick. And roofs are OK. I will separate and populate them and test them once more. So to be sure that it’s the switch. At first test it showed OK. All night instances where glowing but I didn’t populated them.
Any one else please?
The Features “light” Switch is #0.
Check with F4Browse or the BMS utility for the Feature Flags has the “Has Lights” set for each building Feature.
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The Features “light” Switch is #0.
Check with F4Browse or the BMS utility for the Feature Flags has the “Has Lights” set for each building Feature.
But how come in one instance this switch is ok and in the next not?
Ok I did managed to have F4Browse with Aegean work afterall… (finally… although something is not that right with the numbers on records…)… Anyway the field “has lights” in the Flags Area is not ticked…
So I ticked it ans saved it. I closed and reopened to test it, the tick was there.
First in F4Browse during day it showed the night textures, when I select Night it stays the same night texture.
I copy pasted the folder back to it’s location overwriting files.
In Falcon now the same thing… Some instances are lighted and some are with the day non lighted texture… So this must be a dual BUG? (First in F4browse textures (day/night) don’t show correctly and second not all object’s instances light up when using the zero switch…)
And proof picsData:
Day view in Editor:
Night view in Editor:
Day View in Falcon:
Night View in Falcon:
I believe this should be easier like using a light map for the texture… 3ds Max has this (Self Illumination).
A simple think u want to do and u have to spit your guts out first… The beast is strong… but the Faith is stronger… :lol:
Instead of fighting with the object it’s self we are fighting with the tools to make them show up or import…
Sorry for bitching but the time wasted on such things is way stupid…
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Switch my A@@
New Approach works all the time No Fxxx switches… I can make them for the night what ever I like what color how dark how light how many…
Day test:
Night test:
Despite this I would like to see if the damn switch will work afterall… Both approaches must be weighted for time, effort, Poly count and FPS Impact… Also sorry Bmartins but this approach (facades) I don’t think it works with GTlite…
Edit: the switch in general will be useful also cause I will have to put some strobe lights on very high buildings for avoidance… How do we do this?
So now I can progress and leave this behind for the moment…
300.000 polys are the buildings in the following pics… :evil: :woohoo::
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@Arty
I believe what I pointed to here:works in Falcon,without the need for switches or extra texture’s etc……for STATIC Feature’s\Model’s on an Objective. A ROTATING\FLASHING light as a Feature\Model would need some switches set though
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@Arty
I believe what I pointed to here:works in Falcon,without the need for switches or extra texture’s etc……for STATIC Feature’s\Model’s on an Objective. A ROTATING\FLASHING light as a Feature\Model would need some switches set though
Sorry i mist that thanx for reposting it. OK u mean a layer of it (grey will affect colors) with those values will work. But rgb isn’t from zero to 225? So 230 and 231? Or is it 255 and not 225. Hmm will test, I’m on the tablet now. If this works u will be a real saver. Thanx in advance anyway.
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Its one byte per color thus 0-255.